Ok, simple quiz here and the winner gets a free entry into a fun neighborhood race, the Fleet Feet Ravenswook 5k on Sunday morning. I have run it several times, including last year, and always enjoy it. This year, I will be doing a half marathon in Saint Charles that morning, but much of the rest of the media team will be on hand. I'll go with the first person to correctly answer all three questions. Leave your information and I'll contact the winner by email this evening.

*1. Last week's Boston marathon produced the fastest time in the recorded history of the marathon distance. Was it a World Record?

A. Yes

B. No

*2. Sunday morning, the day or the Ravenswood race, what important news event will be happening in Europe?

Some of my friends and I were still excitedly comparing thoughts on Monday's amazing Boston marathon, when news came of the death of one of the greatest runners ever. I was deeply saddened to learn that Grete Waitz had lost her 6 year battle with cancer, and died in a hospital in Oslo, Norway tuesday. She was just 57 years old.

Her running resume is too vast to detail. She was a world record holder several times over, an Olympic medal winner, and won the New York marathon a mind-boggling 9 times. Many credit her as the pioneer who really opened up the sport of distance running to women. Perhaps the most difficult New York marathon she ran however was, by far, her slowest. And most memorable. She ran it in 5:32, in 1992, with her friend, New York marathon founder Fred Lebow. Lebow was suffering from brain cancer that would claim his life two years later. Waitz said it was very difficult to run that race not only because of the emotional aspect, but it was tough to be on the course so long for someone used to running in less than half that time. She meant that, in part, as a tribute to the vast majority of runners who are not as physically gifted and generally finish in the middle and back of the pack.

Some time later, I was fortunate enough to get the chance to interview her a couple times when she was in Chicago to promote the Chase Corporate Challenge race series. She was one of the most humble, down-to-earth women I've ever met. You would never guess she was a living legend in the running world. We chatted about lots of things, but one thing taht was clear is that she was genuinely interested in promoting the sport for women. She was especially proud of the race she started in Norway that draws tens of thousands of women every year.

She promised to send me a copy of the book she was working on at the time. When it was finished, she did send it, with a nice note inside that I proudly treasure to this day. I am in good company with so many others who had the chance to meet and talk to this amazing woman. I ran accross a nice piece by Amby Burfoot of Runner's World that illustrates that point. Here's the link: http://footloose.runnersworld.com/2011/04/remembering-grete-waitz.html

Lots of people have noted the irony that Waitz died one day after the most amazing Boston marathon in the long history of that race. To think that two runners shattered the world record by a mind-blowing margin (nearly a minute), and the top American, Ryan Hall, was under the U.S. record by more than two minutes (and only managed 4th place) is simply beyond hyperbole.

I know it doesn't count as a world record because of the overall drop in elevation and the fact that it's a point-to-point course with the finish so far from the start. But anyone who has run Boston before knows that the elevation changes are hardly an advantage. The downhill portions beat you up, and they are more than equalized by the 'Newton Hills', most notably 'Heartbreak Hill'.

Geoffrey Mutai's effort for now counts merely as the course record. He reportedly wants it to count as the World Record, recognized by the IAAF, and the Boston Marathon organizers are apparently going to appeal on his behalf. Part of the reason a point to point course doesn't count for records is because of the possibility of having a tail wind for the entire race. That was the case in Boston Monday. There was a 20 mile an hour wind at their backs helping them along. But I maintain that the rolling hills there are still so challenging that the wind, while helpful, shouldn't nullify the significance of the time.

And there is one more important point worth noting. Boston is an 'honest' race. There are no rabbits, or pacers to help pull the leaders through in certain splits. Most other major marathons, including Chicago, use rabbits. When Haile Gebrselassieset the world record of 2:03:59 a couple years ago in Berlin, he was aided by three pacers. It was every man for himself Monday in Boston.

A few years ago there was a lot of speculation in the running community that man had just about hit his limit as far as world records in the marathon. Noone could imagine going under 2:07. Then 2:05. Now they have very nearly gone under 2:03! That's a pace of 4:42 per mile, only about 25 seconds or so slower than my fastest single mile in my college track days. But they're keeping that pace for 26 miles. I couldn't have kept it for another 100 meters. It is just crazy.

It's also inspiring. More than a few runners I know who were not in Boston this year mentioned they started thinking about how fun it would be to go after witnessing this year's race. Of course, the conditons this year were just about perfect, and the odds of getting another day like that are pretty slim.

Regardless, it's great to see such amazing feats in running, and it will undoubtedly give us something to talk about while we slog through the miles on our weekend long runs. At a much more pedestrian pace.

I'm not sure when race organizers decided to start handing out medals for finishing a half marathon. Or a stair climb. Heck, they even give out a medal for finishing the Soldier Field 10 miler. It's a nice medal. And I'm not ungrateful, but finishing some of these events just doesn't seem like an accomplishment worthy of getting a medal. Maybe that's just me. I do have a few medals for placing or winning my age group in small races. If pressed, I can probably find those.

I have a bunch of the rest of those finisher medals sitting in a box somewhere. Others are piled in the bottom of a junk drawer. Don't get me wrong, I have some that I treasure. Boston, Paris, New York, and some of my Chicago marathon medals are definitely keepers. And for many of those, my wife has made shadow boxes with pictures of some of those races. Some of the races we have done together, and those bring back nice memories.

I don't want our house to be a museum to our running accomplishments. We like to think we have plenty of other interests. But it is nice to display some of it. In a corner of the basement. So I recently came accross a couple of neat new ways to put some of the more important memories out for people to see.

One I noticed in a magazine recently is a way to hang just your medals. I've seen several variations of this one. This one looks nice, but I suspect I would need several of them if I wanted to display all the medals I've collected. And, as I mentioned, few of them have much meaning to me anyway.

Another way to do it is with an improved concept of the shadow box. It's called the Z-Access frame, and you can put odd shaped objects, like medals, as well as pictures etc. in it and put it anywhere. I used one to display the sunglasses LoLo Jones wore when she won the national championship in the hurdles last summer. Yes, I was the track fan geek in the crowd who caught them, after she threw them into the crowd. I know, some people collect baseballs or footballs signed by their heroes. I have LoLo Jones' sunglasses. Anyway, You can find these frames online if you like. http://www.displayit3d.com/

Another issue is t-shirts. Suffice to say I have quite a few. A few years ago my mother-in-law made one of the the most thoughtful gifts ever. A talented seamstress, she made a quilt out of 30 of my favorite race shirts from the previous decade or so. I treasure it so much, I'm afraid to use it and get it dirty.

I've seen these advertised in the back of running magazines for years, but the fact my mother-in-law made it, makes it much more special to me. The shirts in the quilt she made are all cotton. In the several years since she made it, I have collected enough shirts for a couple more. Most of them are 'dri-fit' material though. I'm not sure how comfortable that would be in a quilt!

Anyway, it's a busy race season that's just getting underway. I've got many more shirts and finisher medals to collect in the next couple months, and hopefully an age group medal or two. Our basement corner wall is full, so I may have to rotate!

I knew it was big. I figured I've run huge marathons like Chicago and New York before, so the crowd would be similar. But I've also run the Shamrock Shuffle back when there were six thousand or so runners, and that was considered a big crowd. So it was still startling to see the mass of humanity making their way to Grant Park early Sunday morning. 40 thousand runners were signed up to race, and about 35,000 showed up.

There were runners everywhere, and many of them were nervously waiting to begin their first race ever. I basically gave up on the idea of meeting my running partners for a pre-race warm-up. We were all on our own. But members of the newly formed 'media team' managed to meet for a pre-race picture. More on that later.

For some reason, with the race on a Sunday, I was out of sorts much of the weekend. I'm so used to doing a long run on Saturday and an easy run on Sunday, that I didn't know what to do with myself most of Saturday. I rode a stationary bike for a while, and tried to avoid indulging myself too much at the wine tasting event we attended that evening.

Even though I had nothing on the line, and was planning on only trying to get a good workout from the race, I was still pretty keyed up. I believe it's because I haven't tried to run fast really since last fall. And even though I've been doing this since I was a teenager, the nerves never seem to go away!

So it was a great relief when the starting horn finally sounded and we were off. I was fortunate to be seeded in corral 'A', which meant I was able to cross the starting line within about 25 seconds of the horn going off. And I never had a complaint that it was too crowded. I'm pretty sure there were a lot of runners who started further back who had a much more difficult time deal with the crowds.

I started off at a pretty good pace, and at the first mile marker was right on the split I hoped to be at, about 6:52. My objective was to run under 35 minutes. I kept on that pace for most of the race, but by the time I hit the 4th mile split, I realized I had slowed down, and was a few seconds behind. Fortunately, the last mile was lined with good crowds and familiar sights. I pushed it a little and managed to finish just under 35 minutes.

That was good for 953rd place overall and 54th in my age group. I guess that's the humbling thing about big races! But the most startling thing about the finish is that as I slowly made my way out toward the gear check back near the start several blocks away, I saw there were still quite a few people who lined up in the back, who had yet to cross the starting line! That means that at least 40 minutes after the leaders started, many runners had yet to cross that line. That takes patience! The winners were already showered and headed home!

My training partner Rick Staback (pictured on the far left) was racing just a week after running a great time at the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in Washington D.C. last weekend. He managed another strong effort, and won his age group Sunday. The others pictured include my wife, and my friends 'Wojo' and 'Rican', part of our weekend training group.

Back to the media team. This is a great group of friends who work for various print and broadcast media outlets who are going to be running a number of races this season.

The group is generously being sponsored by Nike and Fleet Feet Sports, and is hoping to spread the good word about running and various races through social media and other outlets. There are some familiar faces in the picture, as well as some 'behind the scenes' folks, but all are committed runners who love the sport. Thanks to my wife Christine and Amy Freeze (soon of WABC in New York) for their help in organizing the team.

We also took an 'after' photo with several of the team members after the race. We don't look quite as fresh in that shot!

Shamrock traditionally kicks off the running and racing season in Chicago, and with the great weather and fast times, this was a great start. Hopefully everyone enjoyed it, and now we can all go back to our more 'normal' sized races!

When we left the Chicago area last weekend, the weather was warming up enough that I was running in shorts and a t-shirt. But we drove about 5 hours north to Traverse City, Michigan to find winter was still in full force. As we got within an hour or so of our destination, we found an increasing amount of snow on the side of the road. And it seemed to be getting colder by the mile.

I was never one to go exotic places for spring break when I was in school. In fact, I never really went anywhere for spring break. So Michigan seemed like a nice treat for our kids. Or so I tried to convince myself.

And it was a great time. It's beautiful country, and there's lots of fun stuff to do in any season. But from the runner's perspective, it was a step back. The first couple days I was back to dodging snow piles and patches of ice. And forget the shorts and t-shirts. It was running pants and jackets all the way. I think it turns summer there in July!

As for my training schedule, I suppose it was a little less than ideal. Right now, with a bunch of races ranging from 1/2 marathons to five milers coming up, I should be a pretty heavy week of training. That would mean high mileage, and some speed work. So going eating big meals at restaurants and enjoying the nightlife with my wife every night, combined with filling the days with kids activities, was not really the ideal for training.

I did manage to fit in some running. But it wasn't easy. Basically it meant running first thing in the morning before everyone else got going for the day. That would be fine. And frankly, fair. But there was that little 'enjoying the nightlife' issue that made it a bit difficult to get motivated to go long or fast on those early morning runs.

When we left on our trip, I looked forward to some free time to be able to run without the pressure of having to get right back to take the kids to school or a practice or something. But, even on vacation, they all want and deserve my time, so I still found myself hurrying to finish my run to get them to the pool, or the movies or something. Those are the choices and sacrifices we try to balance as runners I guess. I run because I love it. But I also love my family, and doing lots of things that often conflict with training. So we try to fit it all in as best we can.

One of my friends has been able to train pretty seriously for about the last year, following a strict schedule of high mileage and tempo-type workouts. As we talked about that recently, he said he realizes how fortunate he is to have his kids all grown, the support of his wife, and flexibility with his job. Without all three of those, he would probably be like me, fitting in running when and where I can.

So what all this basically means for me this week, is that I plan to run the Shamrock Shuffle on Sunday without the benefit of any speed training. I love this race and this distance. I'm running with several of my usual training partners as well as a number of fellow media teammates who are running in support of the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation. And we'll all be with the 40,000 others who are running this huge race.

The department (and entire city) has suffered four high-profile losses in the last year or so, and the Foundation helps honor those officers, and provide support for their families. If you are interested in making a small donation, you can do so here: http://www.active.com/donate/teamcpdshuffle11 . It's a great cause.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to running the streets of Chicago once again. After the cold of Michigan, the unpredictable Chicago spring is no big deal. In fact, just to drive that point home for me, I had to drive back home from Michigan through a blizzard!

We made it back safely, and let's get back to spring running! See you on the roads......